Supply chains are typically described as a network of people and organizations that interact dynamically to produce and sell a product and/or provide a service. The supply chains worldwide are experiencing tremendous increase in their structural complexity due to the globalization of sourcing, manufacturing, and distribution strategies. Today, retailers, manufacturers, and suppliers operate in a fast changing global environment where quantity of products, pricing, their demand, technical specifications and other supply chain parameters are frequently altered. A supply chain for procurement of goods and services usually involves economies of scale, supply reliability, and efficient sourcing in dynamic environment. A distribution supply chain for fulfillment involves reach of distribution network, availability, rapid response and market pricing. Generally, the analysis of a supply chain is known as supply chain analysis.
The supply chain for any particular company may be primarily an internal supply. However, outsourcing is often used as an alternative to internal supply. Usually, outsourcing is used to reduce costs, control inventories, and respond to rapid demand changes. In current economic conditions outsourcing involves more and more suppliers and thus the supply chains are more complex. Generally, supply chain is affected, for example, by the globalization of businesses, the proliferation of product and service variety, increasing complexity of supply networks, and shortening of product life cycles.
It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that any block diagrams herein represents conceptual views of illustrative systems embodying the principles of the present subject matter. Similarly, it will be appreciated that any flow charts, flow diagrams, and the like represent various processes which may be substantially represented in computer readable medium and so executed by a computer or processor, whether or not such computer or processor is explicitly shown.